India appeals to Bangladesh to stop demolition of Oscar-winning director's family home

Independent

2 days ago

Bangladesh has begun demolishing the century‑old ancestral home of internationally-acclaimed filmmaker Satyajit Ray north of the capital Dhaka.
The house was once used as the Mymensingh Shishu Academy, a government-run centre for children's development. It is being replaced with a new semi‑concrete structure with officials citing structural safety concerns after a decade of neglect, reported Bangladeshi newspaper The Daily Star.
Built some 120km north of Dhaka by Ray's grandfather Upendrakishore Ray Chowdhury, the mansion sat on a sprawling 36‑acre estate. The house links generations of cultural icons: Upendrakishore himself was a pioneering writer, publisher, and technologist of the Bengal Renaissance, best known for founding the children's magazine Sandesh and introducing advanced halftone printing techniques in India; His son, Sukumar Ray, was a beloved poet and satirist whose nonsense verse remains deeply influential in Bengali literature, and his grandson, Satyajit Ray, went on to become one of the most celebrated filmmakers in world cinema.
India's foreign ministry issued a statement on Tuesday expressing 'profound regret' over the demolition, and urged Dhaka to reconsider, offering both technical and financial cooperation to restore the building instead.
'Given the building's landmark status, symbolising Bangla cultural renaissance, it would be preferable to reconsider the demolition and examine options for its repair and reconstruction as a museum of literature and a symbol of the shared culture of India and Bangladesh,' said the statement.
Born in Kolkata in 1921, Ray made his directorial debut with Pather Panchali in 1955, which won international acclaim and became the first in his landmark Apu trilogy. Ray went on to win several accolades, including two Cannes Palme d'Or awards and an honorary Academy Award in 1992.
Ray's son Sandip said the filmmaker had intended to include images of their ancestral home in a documentary, but decided against it upon seeing its derelict state.
'I have never been to Bangladesh to see this building; neither did Baba [Satyajit Ray]. What I saw were the pictures of the building. But I remember Baba wanted to use the pictures of this building when he was working on the Sukumar Ray documentary,' Sandip Ray told NDTV.
'A close associate, who used to look after Baba's production, was sent to Bangladesh to click some pictures of this building. But Baba was very disheartened to see the building in a dilapidated state. He, then, decided that he wouldn't use those pictures in his documentary.'
In Dhaka, officials have defended the decision by saying that the building posed risks to children and that the new structure would allow the academy's activities to be resumed.
'The house had been abandoned for 10 years, and Shishu Academy activities have been running from a rented space,' Md Mehedi Zaman, Mymensingh's district children affairs officer told The Daily Star, adding that all proper procedures were followed by the district administration and public works department.
Mamata Banerjee, the chief minister of India's West Bengal state which borders Bangladesh, wrote on X in Bengali that the news was 'extremely distressing' and describing the Ray family as 'one of the foremost torchbearers of Bengali culture'.
'I appeal to the Bangladesh government and all the conscientious people of that country to take steps to preserve this heritage-laden house. The Indian government should pay attention to this matter,' she wrote.
Within Bangladesh, some archaeologists and cultural activists have expressed regret that despite the building's historical importance, it had never been officially listed as protected. Poet Shamim Ashraf told The Daily Star that appeals to preserve the site were ignored and the 'house remained in a sorry state for years, with cracks forming on its roof'.
Sabina Yeasmin, field officer of the Department of Archaeology, also told the newspaper that repeated warnings had been disregarded.
Adding to growing unease is the fact that another cultural property – Nobel prize-winner Rabindranath Tagore's ancestral home Kachharibari in Sirajganj – was attacked by a mob in early June following a dispute over parking fees. The auditorium was damaged, and the director attacked, prompting a temporary closure of the 19th-century property and an official inquiry.
As a video of the demolition of the Ray family home began circulating online, some expressed dismay and drew a link between the two incidents.
Economist Sanjeev Sanyal wrote on X: 'They were silent when Tagore's house was vandalised. They are silent when Satyajit Ray's ancestral home is demolished. Indeed, they are complicit to the systematic erasure of Bengali Hindu identity in Bangladesh.'